Pre-Morning Snuggles
by sctwilightvampwolfgal
Summary: Before the sun rises enough to irritate tired eyes, they snuggle close and rest in each other's arms. *Nyo!Lithuania.* *Written for Day Three of AmeLiet Week 2019, inspired off of a prompt for today.*


It's warm in the place that no one crawls, the delicate soft spool of arm meeting hand, meeting side, meeting warmth like an intoxicating half-drug. What more is there to want when soft skin meets not-so-soft skin, and eyelashes flutter against other cheeks, and tired minds swim in lazy, lazy circles? What is better than two arms half-intertwined in a forgotten kiss of a hold, and what's better than the quiet whisper-fall of chests that breathe as evenly as the sun surely rises in the morning?  
What's better than knowing that when you shift and turn in bed, that you'll feel another body behind you, steadying you, and reminding you that any temporary pain of the rising sun is just that: temporary? What's better than wondering how hair somehow intertwines, and wondering if it is really worth it getting up in the morning and leaving this warm cocoon of flesh and of exhaustion and of just a level of intimacy that needs no action?

It's soft like a pillow, but somehow warmer than any pillow ever shall be. Daina swallows a yawn and scoots against a chest that should feel hard like a plank, but yet somehow contains a hidden softness that melts her into it. She doesn't doubt that the morning will come all too suddenly, but she also doesn't doubt that the morning cannot drag her away from this, willingly. She'll wake and get up, and the day will become rinse and repeat, but for now, it is just a day spent in bed, wondering if cuddling counted as sleep when it makes the dreams so much easier and so much lighter, when it makes the sunlight less painful in the morning, and when it cushions you like the blanket that your mother tucked you into at night as a child.

Daina stifles a yawn on an elbow, and it doesn't matter that it isn't her elbow that holds the burnt out, tired yawn, but it is his. It doesn't matter that when she snuggles back against root and warmth and the tiredness that seeps into her bones, that it isn't a tree or herself or a worn out teddy bear laying discarded in bed; it is Alfred. Somehow, he keeps her grounded when she can barely stay grounded. She nestles back into the hidden spool of warmth that helps her clouded mind to relax and not to be filled with rain, that helps her to snuggle past the bad dreams and storms that sometimes would haunt her anyway.

Why is there something so appealing about defenselessness: his own and her own? She wonders if anyone ever counted the times, when defensiveless became soothing and attractive in a way that usually repulsed one growing up and most of the time. There's something appealing about sleep, sleep near another, letting your guard down, and knowing that in your lack of defense, meets another's lack of defense, and a kind of love that is not held bitter by silly strings, but tied together in the glue of early mornings, the glue of late sunsets turned to early sunrises, and Daina doesn't pause to wonder why this defensivelessness is so appealing, so enjoyable. There's something to be relished in falling asleep by another's side, no desire to keep watch, doors often left unlocked, and bedroom door somehow open still. There's something sweet and innocent about knowing that the best pillow for you is not store bought, but people found. You find that somehow it's better to sleep in the spool of someone's arms, than to feel a thousand blankets wrapped around you snug.

Daina lets her heartbeat slow to the soft, rhythm-tempo of the quiet morning before eyelashes flutter open, before arms reach for glasses or books or clothes or work, and before you have to run through the mental checklist of the day. She curls around a body warm in still-sleep, and she wonders if it's easier to sleep by his side than the many years alone when growing up meet adulthood and Momma's bed was no longer an option on the hard to sleep on nights. It's like a million mother's beds, and a thousand comforts. Daina lets her eyes drift deeper closed, as if finally succumbing once again to the joy that has held her together so long since marriage, or rather since the night, every night on loop. Every single comfort found in a warm embrace, every single difficulty forgotten and shed where skin holds close to a kind of gentle warmth.

Daina doesn't breathe in a question; she breathes in a sleep, the same kind of sleep that keeps them both grounded until the morning shine becomes too much to bear, and the jobs and menial tasks of the day call them back to march rhythm of work. No one has to work or to stress or to cry, when snuggled close in bed in deep sleep with a kind of warmth that only festers when guards are let down and hearts are allowed to shine.


End file.
